Known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,749 issued on Jun. 13, 1989, to Eustace Franklin, is a vehicle safety and personal message system primarily designed to be incorporated into a vehicle to provide the driver with a pre-recorded speech message pertaining to either a vehicle safety alert or a personal message. The safety alerts include such events as: door ajar, burglar alarm ON or OFF, speed limit exceeded and a fire/police siren detector. The personalized messages include reminders such as birth dates, anniversaries, meeting date/time and scheduled maintenance periods. All the messages can be recorded in any language and in any local or ethnic jargon and the personal messages may be programmed to occur at anytime within a one-year period. Although the system's primary usage is for vehicles, it can also be adapted for use on many other products that utilize short messages. These products include robotics, ATM machines, telephone answering machines, fire detection devices, toys and numerous other consumer oriented products.
Disclosed in a US patent application 2007/0001824 A1 published on Jan. 4, 2007, and authored by Donna Lee is a vehicle alarm system that can sound in any variety of tones, sounds, sequences, songs, melodies, tunes, and/or any other prerecorded or individually created and/or determined phrases, statements, songs, tunes, tones, etc.
Known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,130,605 issued on Oct. 10, 2000, to Kenneth E. Flick is a vehicle security system includes an audible alarm indicator, and a controller to generate an alarm indication comprising a plurality of distinguishable sound patterns. The sound patterns overlap in time yet are audibly distinguishable from one another to thereby create an illusion of multiple alarms. Accordingly, a would-be thief may be convinced that multiple vehicle alarms have been triggered and, thus, that more than one vehicle owner may be alerted. The vehicle security system may include at least one vehicle security sensor, and the controller is preferably responsive to the sensor to generate the audible alarm indication. The distinguishable sound patterns may be different from one another. In some other embodiments, at least two of the distinguishable sound patterns are the same sound patterns, but which are out of phase with one another to provide the illusion of multiple alarms. Each of the distinguishable sound patterns preferably includes successive repetitive portions. For example, each of the distinguishable sound patterns may include repetitive changes in at least one of frequency and volume.
Yet, a need exists for an indicator system that could play music or transmit a message upon opening a door of a vehicle.